The early days of a new year are my designated time for cleaning up, cleaning out, consolidating, and turning my attention to what I’ve been missing. I often find valuable nuggets amid the rubble of my office that I can use to direct me toward the next waypoint on my journey.

Amid this year’s stacks of papers and stupefying collection of random stuff* that somehow ended up in my office, I find two gifts.

The first is smaller than my computer mouse and wrapped in purple paper. I remember watching the store clerk (possibly at Kripalu) wrapping it, but can no longer recall what is inside or who I intended to give it to.

The other gift creates a different dilemma. It’s a bag of chocolates that I received in 2016 and never opened. I realize this only after I send a lovely thank-you email to the person who gave it to me, thinking it was a gift from this Christmas. Needless to say, Jenny was a little confused about my expression of gratitude—and we both wrote off the mistake as a side effect of midlife memory loss.

But, in fact, it was much more than that.

You see, I seem to have some kind of clinical blind spot about gifts—I like to buy them, but often get cold feet about actually giving them. And, while I like to receive them, I often don’t actually unbox or use them for a long time (if at all), and have even been known to leave them unwrapped.

Let’s just say this was not the first time that I was able to place this year’s Christmas gifts next to last year’s as they sat new in their boxes, stacked neatly for 12 months in the far corner of my office.

As I write this, both of these “gifts” still sit there in limbo—gifts in name only, since one was never given and the others, not really received.

Before you jump to the conclusion that this makes no sense (with which I would wholeheartedly concur), take a minute to consider the thought that dawns on me as I look at these artifacts.

Are these abandoned gifts signs of something deeper? Maybe I (and maybe you, too) have other “gifts” that have been hoarded or unappreciated.

What gifts do we have in our lives that are similarly ferreted away—ensconced in some kind of veil that keeps us from knowing what’s inside us?

Are there character strengths, talents, skills that we have developed that we’ve kept to ourselves? Do you have resources, ideas, or support that are available to be given freely, but something is keeping you from doing so? What do we have that can help someone else?

Or, conversely, are there gifts that we have failed to appreciate the way these kids have?

Are we ripping open our wrapping with gratitude and embracing all our gifts? Is there something inside us that we’ve declined to receive or to fully integrate with who we are as a person? Do you sit there, like I have, and look right past what’s been there all along?

Are people trying to reach out to you? Are you enjoying, embracing, and enhancing your life with the compassion and joy that life is offering you?

Is love being offered? Forgiveness? Empathy? Collaboration? Are you too set in your ways at work to be inclusive of others who can help? Are you too proud to let people share their resources and unique contributions with you? What are you refusing?

At work, do you really take the effort to find out what you and your colleagues can contribute beyond what you’ve been allowed to do?

At home, could you be a tiny bit more vulnerable, and more deeply appreciate what your family is giving you now? Or are you stuck measuring your loved ones solely by what you want them to be in the future?

For it is truly better to give and receive.

May this new year of 2018 be the time we share more of the gifts we have for others, and appreciate and accept the abundance that is right in front of us.

I’ll start by tasting these chocolate caramels. It’s never too late for that.

*For the record, this heap included a lost flathead screwdriver (whose replacement I bought just last week), a set of puzzle books, a Buddhist coloring book, mulling spice kits, a magnetic refrigerator clip, sunglasses, a $30 Justice coupon, an old iPad, a new Amazon Fire, automobile repair receipts, ticket stubs, four courtside seats to upcoming 76ers games, a hand-strengthening gadget, two and a half phone chargers, an old credit card, a camera, reader glasses, and a bottle of Icelandic water.

This post was originally created for Wholebeing Institute as a part of my installment series on the fundamental concepts and stories of positive psychology. For the entire series, or to sign up now for a free two-part video training series and free e-workbook on evidence-based tools for flourishing, click here.

Lion, the Academy Award-nominated film based on the true story of a child’s accidental separation from his family in India, has been selected Running Movie of the Year by TakingMulligans, a website that explores the emotional side of running.

The movie depicts the young Saroo’s natural reliance on running, not as a sport, but as an integral part of how he lives his life. Saroo, played as a child by Sunny Pawar, doesn’t run for fitness or personal records, he runs because he is compelled to by circumstance. He runs because he can and because he has to. In running, Saroo finds deliverance not only from imminent and nefarious threats to him as a child, but also later in life, in the imagery and emotion that the activity has seared into his memory.

Sunny Pawar plays the young Saroo in Lion, Taking Mulligan’s 2016 Running Movie of the Year

It is for this poignant, visceral and dramatic demonstration of the power of running to protect us physically and nurture us emotionally that has distinguished Lion as Running Movie of the Year.

Running serves the hero of the story in several pivotal ways. First, in a practical way: it is how the small child navigates the harsh realities of living in his tiny village. He runs to do his work and return safely to his home. He even finds safety in a mad dash for medical care after a startling childhood accident. Running also becomes his escape route when threatened by child kidnappers who prey upon his vulnerability.

Finally, when the boy, now grown into a man, and played by Academy Award nominee Dev Patel, seeks to reconstruct the clues to his childhood, running serves him one more time. As he relives the moments of his youth, he sees himself again through the eyes and emotions of that running child (with a little help from Google Earth). Through the imprint that running to and through his village has made in his memory, the grown-up Saroo unlocks the answers of who he is and where he comes from.

Throughout Lion, the Academy Award-nominated film, the hero finds safety, deliverance and life-altering redemption in the physical and emotional gifts of running. (photo by Mark Rogers)

Other nominees this year included ‘Race,’ the story of Jesse Owens and his triumphant victories in the 1936 Berlin Olympics in the days leading up to World War II, and Sully, the story of pilot Chesley Sullenburger, who found running to be a source of strength and emotional refuge which contributed to (and helped him deal with the aftermath of) his daring landing of a passenger jet in the Hudson River. Sullenburger was featured in this Runners’ World article when the movie premiered.

Taking Mulligans’ Running Movie of the Year is chosen to reflect how running is more than just a sport or fitness activity, it can unlock emotions and serve as a catalyst for change and positive developments in life.

As loyal readers of Taking Mulligans know, the disappointing circumstances of my final high school track meet started a thread of endeavors that led me to, more than 30 years later, write an upcoming book and two major features stories for Runners’ World (The Mulligan Mile, Cross Country Romance). I can only imagine where Justin DeLuzio’s final college cross country race will propel him. Other than a cornfield.

In November, he was about a mile into running that race for Gwyneed Mercy University, when a deer blindsided him and knocked him airborne– and into the viral running clip of the year. Click below for ESPN’s coverage of it.

Getting knocked down may win you viral clip of the year. But it’s what’s not on this clip that won him our Mulligan Moment of the Year– getting back up to finish the last 4 miles of the race. And what’s more, it’s a few thoughts he shared in this interview with NPR that resonated most with Taking Mulligans. Listen and you’ll hear some good advice for going forward into 2017. Surprisingly, he’s not the one in the interview that encourages us to get back up when we get knocked down. His advice? No resentment. Be grateful. Be aware.

And for that, Justin DeLuzio, an actuarial science student from Limerick, PA, wins Running’s Mulligan Moment of the Year.

Sometime a mulligan is more than just a mulligan. It’s a way forward that breaks abruptly with the past and establishes a whole new perspective on the world. Here are two Mulligan Moments that may be harbingers of new understanding and appreciation of what’s best about our great nation and the towns that we live in.

The most startling and emotional moment came at the contentious location of Standing Rock, when a gathering of veterans offered a very public apology for transgressions of the United States government, military, and citizens upon the native peoples of the land of North America. Seeking forgiveness is a humbling step. And accepting forgiveness is a tremendous gift to all parties involved. May this moment be the mulligan that heals and protects and brings peace and justice to our nation and our Native American family.

A dear friend and inspiration of mine, Joyce Marin, pointed out that that not only do people have comeback stories, but a town can too. Joyce, the executive director of RenewLV, reminded me of Iron Works Catasauquaand the work of their municipal council to push this project forward over the last 10 years. According to Joyce, this year the council, led by Vincent Smith, Catasauqua, PA’s borough council president, passed the mixed-use zoning required to take a former industrial site and turn it into a new 13 acre walkable-bikeable neighborhood connected to their downtown. May it be the start of something even bigger for what may become the Lehigh Valley’s Mulligan Town.

Lots of talk this year about protecting our daughters from threats, both domestic and foreign. I think about these quite frequently, as I have three daughters (and a tiny little granddaughter) in my own family. I do have strong opinions about the poison that I believe is leaking into the way we relate to each other, but rather than amplify the horrifying rhetoric that divides us, I want to offer a few anecdotes of antidote. Here are some Mulligan Moments of 2016 offered by friends of mine who have seen their daughters rise to the challenges they faced in their own lives — and who responded with grit and good old fashioned girl power.

We do need to protect our girls. Not because they are helpless, but rather so that they can lead us.

Carry On When an earthquake hit New Zealand a couple weeks ago, a National Outdoor Leadership School group was kayaking along the Clarence River, which soon started to fill with debris from rockslides. The group acted quickly to get themselves to higher ground and reduce the chances of being swept away by avalanches or the river itself, which ultimately did break through the dam holding it back. The group of college students had to be air lifted out by helicopter. In and of itself, that’s a great story with a happy ending. But here’s my favorite part: each student was given the option of cutting the rest of the outing short and returning home without penalty. Keep in mind they’ve already been out on this expedition for about 2 months without as much as a call home. Every single one stayed on and are now completing the trip as planned. Among them is Paige Shetty, daughter of Lisa and Baba Shetty, who became dear friends of mine during graduate school at the University of Rochester. Paige and her NOLS friends could have let the trauma of that experience, or the fear of the next potential calamity in the wilderness, force them into giving up on this adventure of a lifetime. But they put aside both the brush with death and the future threats– and showed us how to make use of a Mulligan Moment.

Build Up Resolve is required, but it is not enough by itself. When you are trying to overcome an injury, physical or emotional, it takes more than just wanting to be healthy and whole. You have to want to do what it takes to become healthy and whole. Like when you tear your ACL the day before you realize your dream of playing in your first college basketball game, like Meagan Eripret did last year. But, according to her father Marc Eripret, Meagan did whatever it took to heal and build up her strength– day in and day out. And now she’s off to a solid start with her Lehigh teammates in this year’s season. Resolve plus hard work equals a Mulligan Moment. I am sure she learned this when I coached Meagan (alongside Marc and her mom, Bridget Eripret) for many seasons of youth league basketball and soccer. So now I can see her (#13 below) and say I coached a Division I player. I take complete and unwarranted credit for all her athletic accomplishments.

Breathe Fire Never underestimate the power of a teenage girl who is ready to fight. Olivia Maniace showed us why this year, when she put together this video look at what she endures and overcomes in dealing with lungs compromised by cystic fibrosis. I thank Lucy Sheelar-Gomez for bringing Olivia’s fight to my attention. And I thank Olivia for this Mulligan Moment and the reminder of what fighting the good fight really means. My favorite part of the video is when she calls a piece of vital hospital equipment “annoying”. This is a word my daughters use constantly. Girls will be girls. And thank God for that.

The key to a useful mulligan is leaving behind the circumstances that got you wherever you are. Whatever has passed may be important, but it is also no longer relevant. Neither is the impending doom that appears to be threatening you. Again, it may be important to know that’s out there, but it’s even more important to forget that it is — and act with bravery. For in that bravery, it is that amnesia that allows us to succeed in life as it happens.

Even when the end is near. Especially when the end is near. Here are a some well-known folks who faced the end and delivered the successes of a lifetime. They are now forever enshrined among the Mulligan Moments of 2016.

David Bowie and Leonard Cohen Each of these music innovators recorded and released brilliant albums in the days leading up to their death. Each had shared their lives with millions of us who followed their long, prodigious musical careers. They each could have rested on their laurels and let the final days of their lives fill, and justifiably so, with looking back or obsessing about what lay ahead for them. Instead, they gave us compelling witness to what it means to keep living, keep creating, keep making every shot count. There was nothing the least bit wrong with what had gotten them to that point in their lives– it wasn’t that kind of mulligan they took. It was the kind that simply and beautifully said, “That was then, This is now. And now is all we have to give.”

Cleveland Cavaliers and Chicago Cubs Both teams were down 3 games to 1 in their respective championship series. Both could feel the breath slipping away on the dreams that have haunted their respective fans for ages. The Cavaliers had never won a NBA title and the Cubs hadn’t won a World Series in over 100 years. Yet they both found out (as did their opponents) that the games that came before mattered– and yet they didn’t matter. It mattered that they were only one loss from elimination, but it was also irrelevant to the next game. Just go out and play . And win. And they did. And did. And did. They took care of what was in front of them, and the rest took care of itself.

Mulligan Moments of the Year recognize the achievements (large and small), observations (grand and flippant) and contributions (tangible and ephemeral) of people, (famous, infamous, and unknown), that demonstrated the resolve, awareness, good intention and blind luck that occurs when you run like there’s no tomorrow and live like there’s no yesterday. In short, someone who took a second chance and made it count. Nominations are still being accepted via all my social media platforms, as follows: